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In the best of times, it is not easy to explain the complexities of the Middle East and how the United States has related to it over the past century. Most Americans are oblivious to their country's massive impact on the world and on the Middle East in particular. It is even harder after the trauma of September 11 to explain that for decades the United States itself helped to foster some of the radical-extremist Islamic tendencies that gave rise to the horrific attacks on U.S. cities.
American media self-censorship has ensured a traditional black out on certain types of news about the Middle East (for instance, reportage, common in the Israeli or European press, on Israeli human-rights violations in the occupied territories). Nevertheless, it is a fact that many of the leaders of the groups that most likely carried out these attacks were once welcome allies of the United States. This is true whether they once belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood or one of its offshoots, adhered to extreme versions of Saudi Wahhabi doctrine, or joined the Afghan mujahideen during the war against the Soviet occupation. They, or their intellectual forebears and spiritual guides, were for decades ardent foot soldiers of the United States against enemies that included Arab nationalism, Nasserism, local communist parties, radical regimes, secular Palestinian nationalism, and the Soviets in Afghanistan.
To the discomfort of American policy makers as well as critics of American policy, these radical extremists espouse--whether genuinely or out of opportunism--causes that are popular throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, as well as unpopular radical-Islamic nostrums for the ills of Middle Eastern societies.
The popular causes include Palestinian self-determination, an end to the sanctions imposed on Iraq since the Gulf War, the removal of American bases from Saudi Arabia, and opposition to autocratic, corrupt regimes that dominate most countries of the region. This is problematic for policy makers who claim that the United States acts in the name of freedom, for if the freely expressed views of people in these countries were known, most would very likely be opposed to U.S. policy on all of these issues.
It is equally disconcerting for longtime critics of these American policies to hear Osama bin Laden invoking these arguments. The last thing they want, after years of being ostracized for criticizing Washington's actions, is to be identified, even indirectly, with the people who killed thousands of innocent Americans. Their task, already supremely difficult in a country unfamiliar with the Middle East and consistently favorable to Israeli perspectives on the region, has suddenly become even harder.
And yet, there exists a deep connection between current events and historical ones that on the surface may seem academic. It lies in long-standing Western policies in Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East that favored domestically easy, politically convenient conclusions about what was just and in keeping with the principles of self-determination and international law. For long before there was an American position on the Palestine question--a policy driven primarily by political concerns in the United States--there was a British position, similarly driven by concerns external to Palestine. And facing both countries was a Palestinian leadership that seemed to grasp only dimly, if at all, the strategic challenge before it, the actual balance of forces confronting it, and the nature of the relationship between the great power of the day and its Zionist allies.
While Britain and the international community solemnly committed themselves to self-determination for the Jewish people in the 1920s and 1930s, there was no such commitment to the Palestinian people, in spite of the Palestinians' unified insistence on their national rights and on Britain's obligation to keep its World War I promises of independence to the Arabs. Only after a bloody, three-year Palestinian revolt and with war looming in 1939 did the British grudgingly grant this principle, although World War II and the Holocaust intervened to render their promise meaningless.
Similarly, the United States, the first country to recognize the independence of Israel, has yet to support the independence of Arab Palestine. Ironically, with another kind of world war about to engulf us, President George W. Bush finally announced that this had "always" been an American objective; in fact, the idea was only recently broached for the first time, by his immediate predecessor, Bill Clinton.
If the hypocrisy in the United States upholding Israel's independence while denying that of Palestine is lost on most Americans, it is generally seen as manifest, inexplicable, and reprehensible in the rest of the world. Until it needed international support, however, a unilateralist United States could affordto ignore the nagging of Europe, Russia, China, and Arabs and Muslims on this and other issues. Today, suddenly, it appears to be paying attention.
Past and present are linked as well in the ways that Western powers contributed to the genesis of political Islam in the interwar period and again in recent decades. Thus, in Palestine, the British from the outset fostered the creation of Islamic institutions headed by the mufti Hajj Amin al-Husayni, even while denying legitimacy to Palestinian national bodies and preventing the establishment of representative political institutions. The British gave these newly invented Islamic institutions broad patronage power and full control of extensive revenues. For nearly two decades, until the 1936 revolt, this policy served to distract much of the Palestinian elite from a unified focus on anticolonial national objectives.
A clear parallel to this British policy can be seen in that of the United States: To counterbalance radical anti-American forces (and with support from its allies in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Anwar Sadat's Egypt), America fostered the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic formations even as they stifled democracy in the Arab world. For two decades after the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Israel similarly used the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza as a counterweight to the Palestine Liberation Organization, encouraging Brotherhood thugs to intimidate PLO supporters and even busing them across Israel from Gaza to the West Bank for that purpose. Thereafter, the Muslim Brotherhood sent young Palestinians off to Afghanistan to resist the Soviet invasion in 1979, rather than the Israeli occupation, arguing that this was the path of "true" jihad. Needless to say, Israel welcomed this development.
As happens in politics, these alliances shifted. In the end, the mufti became a fierce opponent of the British, while the Muslim Brotherhood and related Islamist offshoots spawned profoundly anti-Western and anti-Israeli groups like bin Laden's al-Qaeda, Hamas, and others in Egypt, Algeria, and elsewhere.
Political Islam frequently served as a potent vehicle for resistance tocolonialism and external control. In Palestine the death of the charismatic preacher Shaykh Izz al-Din al-Qassam in 1935 at the hands of the British inspired the revolt of 1936 to 1939, while more recently the Islamic Jihad Movement, disgusted by the Muslim Brotherhood's passivity toward the Israeli occupation, attacked Israeli troops, sparking the intifada that broke out in December 1987.
In yet another ironic twist in the obscure early part of this strange story, the man described by the young Osama bin Laden as his "guide" in the early 1980swas the charismatic Palestinian radical Abdullah Azzam, who played a key role in the flow of young men from Gaza and the West Bank to the battlefields of Afghanistan. Azzam was one of the leading advocates of developing a new kind of political tool: a radical form of Islam with roots in the approach of the Muslim Brotherhood and militant Wahhabi ideas. This approach was first employed against the Red Army in Afghanistan--in a campaign blessed, armed, trained, and financed by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Directorate for Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and Saudi intelligence under Prince Turki al-Faisal. Bin Laden was central in arranging the clandestine financing of this campaign.
Today we know the middle of this story, even if none of us can yet foresee the end: The CIA is now busy hunting its erstwhile Afghan and Arab allies; the ISI is currently switching sides and turning on the Taliban regime it installed in Kabul six years ago; and just before September 11, Prince Turki was abruptly removed from his post after many years of service. But the beginning of the story is still being obscured by an official and media discourse that excoriates Saudi Arabia for its support of the likes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, while passing in silence over the United States' erstwhile encouragement of bin Laden and others like him, and its complaisance toward the installation by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Islam, of course, was a political vehicle of immense power (and had built one of the greatest civilizations the world has known) centuries before Western Europe climbed out of the Dark Ages, and Wahhabism was a potent political force before the U.S. Constitution was adopted. But it is ridiculous to claim that the forms that extreme Islamic radicalism took in recent years were shaped only by the Islamic heritage and the narrow vision of Islam propagated in the eighteenth century and afterward by Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab or other homegrown purveyors of a radical new interpretation of Islam. The truth is that these forms were also profoundly shaped by the policies of the United States and its closest allies in the Middle East and South Asia in the last decades of the Cold War.
And if there is disillusionment, anger, even hatred for the United States in many countries in these regions, it is not necessary to look at Islamic doctrine, at the alleged propensity of Muslims for violence, or at the supposed centrality of the concept of jihad to Islam for the causes. One need look no further than the corrupt and autocratic regimes propped up by the United States, and its disregard for the opinions of Middle Eastern peoples regarding Palestine, sanctions on Iraq, and other issues.


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One of the VIPs at Saturday's QuikTrip Air and Rocket Racing Show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). (He was more than a guest, though: he flew one of the planes at the show.) When he wasn't flying, he was talking up the prospects of Tulsa getting one of the shuttle orbiters once the fleet is retired. He could also be seen having an involved discussion with another VIP in attendance, Buzz Aldrin, about space exploration.
After he completed that discussion, I asked Inhofe his thoughts about the new plans for NASA as described in the FY11 budget proposed and President Obama's speech earlier this month. "Well, I don't think the president has done many things right—I can't think of anything—and certainly cutting back on the space program, which is what he's doing… His priorities are social engineering, they're not the military, they're not infrastructure, they're certainly not the space program," he said. "I often say to people that we're going to change the House and the Senate in November, and a lot of these things that he's done we can undo, and I plan to do that."
His comments appeared to be in contrast with those of a number of other special guests at the event, including Aldrin, Peter Diamandis, and Richard Garriott, among others, who talked up throughout the day the prospects of the commercial sector taking over transportation of astronauts to low Earth orbit. So I asked Inhofe: do you support that aspect of the plan? His ambiguity-free response: "No, I do not."

subset: commoncrawl


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Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project and the Lessons of International Solidarity by Ramor Ryan, AK Press, 2011, 211 pp., $16 (paperback)
In Zapatista Spring, author Ramor Ryan reveals the ambivalent, contradictory, and neocolonial nature of "solidarity work" in one of the Zapatista autonomous municipalities of Chiapas, Mexico. His work blends the genres of diary, ethnography, novel, and zine in an allegory of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Ryan documents his journey with an eclectic group of solidarity activists—an Italian NGO worker, a media activist, an academic, a squatter from Barcelona, and a "doctrinaire anarchist"—as they work alongside indigenous members of the Roberto Arenas Zapatista autonomous community to build a much needed water system.
The Zapatistas' initial welcome of the outsiders gives way to missing equipment, mosquito bites, drunken truck drivers, and the real back-breaking work of digging trenches and water canals. Although the activists are treated warmly, intercultural communication seems challenging, particularly with the women in the community. Eventually the water system is built and celebrated. But a couple of years later, three of the activists return to find that the Roberto Arenas community has succumbed to the government's counterinsurgency land-titling program that aims to co-opt the Zapatista movement by privatizing land for outside investment and neoliberal development. The community they were in solidarity with to build the water system has left the Zapatistas to join a paramilitary organization, the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights, which was set up by the government to protect the privatized land.
Ryan's prose is honest, punk, and painfully self-critical. His description captures the feeling of daily life in the autonomous communities. At the same time, his description of solidarity delegations reminded me of the most contradictory aspects of so-called solidarity work that I participated in and observed in Chiapas from 1999 to 2006. Ryan's rich characters illuminate how many Europeans and North Americans try to incorporate revolutionary politics while maintaining cultures of individualism.
Ryan emphasizes the dissonances of solidarity. The protagonists purport to be dedicated to helping others, but they are self-centered individuals—nomadic, adventuring, and accountable to no one. They are self-righteous and self-proclaimed revolutionaries, but these European and North American fans of the Zapatistas demonstrate very little awareness of how individuals might effectively form a collective, make decisions, and be accountable to each other or to a larger organization.
In a well-woven theoretical interlude, Ryan juxtaposes Conrad's Heart of Darkness with Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's critique of Conrad. Achebe argues that Conrad's novel is a self-centered account of the mental disintegration of one particular colonizer, which reduces Africa to the mere backdrop of the story.
"Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance," said Achebe in a 1975 speech at the University of Massachusetts, "in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind?"
Ryan, however, suggests that solidarity activists see themselves in the tradition of Irish revolutionary Roger Casement, who exposed and organized against the exploitative European rubber trade in Congo in 1904. That is, in Ryan's words, like Casement, they attempt to use their privilege as a "weapon for justice against the marauding imperialism."
But Ryan doesn't convince me that the solidarity activists achieve Casement's ideal. Nor am I convinced that using one's privilege to expose exploitative trade practices is all we can hope for in the practice of international solidarity.
In spite of his critique of Conrad, Ryan self-consciously uses Chiapas as a backdrop for the drama and disintegration of European and U.S. activists, as Conrad used Africa. His story focuses on self-centered solidarity workers and their ideological tensions. The narrative climax is an argument among them, a put-a-snake-in-his-bed prank gone wrong. The water system is built, but the solidarity project is ultimately impotent in the face of the government counterinsurgency strategy. Instead of offering, as the Zapatistas do, ways to resist colonial dynamics, Ryan's text offers literary allusion, description, and paralyzing contradictions.
Zapatista Spring serves as an eye-opening, cautionary tale to solidarity activists around the world. I value how Ryan pushes his readers to wrestle with the contradictions of solidarity work, and I appreciate his rich description of the Chiapas that is visible to solidarity tourists. I question whether younger readers can navigate between the self-critique and self-congratulatory posture of the solidarity workers. If you choose Ryan as a teaching text, consider supplementing it with other readings that offer pathways through the contradictions. Otherwise it's too easy to end up in a nihilist, postmodern swamp with no plausible routes out of the politics of neoliberal counterinsurgency.
Is it that Ryan chronicled a particularly lousy bunch of solidarity workers? Probably not. But his choice to focus on this eclectic grouping means that his chronicle misses some of the key aspects of the Zapatista movement, such as Zapatista-led political education and independent media.
The strength of Zapatista political education is that it is led by people who have developed a common analysis of the breadth and depth of the forces they are up against. Since their 1994 uprising, grassroots organizations throughout the Americas have learned from the Zapatistas. Surely solidarity delegations of unaffiliated individuals accomplish some political education, but there is greater accountability when participants are from organized collectives. Political education also has longer-term impacts when pathways are created for organizational learning.
For example, Zapatista organizations and their sympathizers have led and organized encuentros, or regional and international conferences, such as the Conference Against Plan Puebla-Panamá, Convergence of Popular Movements of the Americas, or the Conference Against the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Organizations in and beyond Mexico practice collective forms of political education by learning from Zapatista principles. Some of these include Tzome Ixuk, an indigenous Tojolabal women's collective in Las Margaritas, Casa del Pueblo in Los Angeles, the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) in Philadelphia, and the Movement for Justice in El Barrio in New York (see page 27).1
Organizers around the world have also learned from the Zapatistas' use of media. It is worth noting that those charged with repressing the movement recognize the Zapatistas' media savvy. In a study for the RAND Corporation (a think tank first established by the Douglas Aircraft Company to conduct research and analysis for the U.S. military), researchers John Arquilla and David Ronfelt describe the Zapatista strategy as "social netwar"—the creation and transmission of counter-narratives through social and electronic networks. They caution the U.S. armed forces and government that this information-age form of conflict is the greatest threat represented by the Zapatista movement.
Some movement organizers in the United States reflect on the power of netwar to shape communication strategy. MMP is working to develop a communications infrastructure for building a broad-based movement of the poor and dispossessed to end poverty. They are able to connect many different subjects—high school students from the Philadelphia Student Union, members of the Taxi Drivers Alliance, parents of children in Head Start (the federally funded service program for low-income children and their families)—to tell their stories and show how all their experiences of struggle are connected.
While Ryan's description of building the Roberto Arenas water system is an antidote to the often self-congratulatory proponents of international Zapatismo, I would recommend that this text be read together with other books that provide a broader look at the Zapatistas' revolutionary activities and explain their powerful lessons for movements around the world.
Alicia Swords is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Ithaca College and is part of the Poverty Scholars Program of the Poverty Initiative.
1. Sabine Masson et al., Tzome Ixuk: Una historia de mujeres tojolabales en lucha: Etnografía de una cooperativa en el contexto de los movimientos sociales en Chiapas (Mexico City: Plaza y Valdéz Editores, 2008); Kara Zugman Dellacioppa, "The Bridge Called Zapatismo: Transcultural and Transnational Activist Networks in Los Angeles and Beyond," Latin American Perspectives 38, no. 1 (January 2011): 120–37.


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News anchors and presidential administrations come and go, but some things stay the same. In 2004, CBS apologized for a politically charged 60 Minutes report questioning George W. Bush's National Guard service during the Vietnam War. And today, CBS apologized for a politically charged 60 Minutes report on the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which it now says was based on a questionable interview from a purported eyewitness.
The names have changed, the circumstances are not exactly the same. But both cases were examples of an unfortunate pattern: the network invested in a high-stakes story, then, under questioning, dug in its heels as long as possible before admitting mistakes.
The original report, which aired Oct. 27, had come under almost immediate questioning, both from activist outlets and from other mainstream media organizations. In the 60 Minutes interview, security contractor Dylan Davies claimed to have been present at the scene of the attack that killed four people. Days later, however, the Washington Post reported that, in an incident report following the attack, Davies said that he had not been on the scene until the next day.
At best, CBS had aired a report by someone who had either lied to them or lied to superiors without their knowledge. Yet CBS didn't just stand by the story, it pushed back hard, at some points suggesting that it was being attacked by critics because of partisan motives. (Media Matters for America, a media-criticism group that tends to target conservatives, was at the forefront of the criticism.) As recently as Wednesday, 60 Minutes producer emailed the Huffington Post that the outlet was "proud" of their story.
But Davies' credibility was also being questioned by the hardly left-of-center Fox News, one of whose reporters said Davies had asked for money to cooperate with a story. And further complicating the money picture: Davies was promoting a memoir published by a corporate sibling of CBS, which the 60 Minutes report did not disclose. (CBS did at least earlier say the non-disclosure was a mistake.)
By the end of this week, the doubts around the report crescendoed to the point where CBS had to back off. Last night, the network sent out an abrupt statement: "We are currently looking into this serious matter to determine if he misled us, and if so, we will make a correction." And this morning, Lara Logan, the correspondent on the original report, went on CBS This Morning to walk it back: "What we now know," she said, "is that he told the FBI a different story from what he told us. That's when we realized that we no longer had confidence in our source, and that we were wrong to put him on air, and we apologize to our viewers… we will correct the record on our broadcast on Sunday night."
Apologizing for a report that clearly, at least with what we know to date, should not have made air is the right thing and a good start. But there's nothing in Logan's or CBS's statements that suggest CBS had been moved to it by any information or doubts that had not been in the press for over a week already. Logan's apology this morning does cite a second story, out earlier this week, that Davies had told a different story to the FBI as well as in his incident report. But there's no indication why that's a distinction with a significant enough difference: either way, they aired an explosive charge from a man with questionable credibility.
As with the National Guard story, CBS is not just embarrassed journalistically but solidly stuck in an acrimonious partisan political debate. (Sen. Lindsey Graham cited the report as partial reason for his decision to block the confirmations of the Obama Administrations appointees in the Senate, calling the 60 Minutes interview a "death blow.") It aired a damning, and now suspect, report to the biggest remaining news audience in TV. And it has itself to blame–not just for the story, but for the follow-up, which make the mistake worse than it needed to be.
Whatever went on in this specific report, CBS's wagons-circling response to reasonable criticisms was an example of an unfortunately familiar pattern in journalistic (and other screw-ups). Once someone stakes out a tough or controversial position, there's a buy-in: from that point on, they're conditioned to look for reasons to support a position they're already invested in.
The fact that partisan groups are advancing a critique becomes reason to overlook the objective reasons for the critique. The fact that you've put in time and reporting resources–and don't doubt that Logan and company worked as doggedly as they say they did–becomes reason to dismiss a source's contradictory testimony. The story becomes the reason to defend the story (as do the consequences of admitting fault).
In 2004, 60 Minutes survived the National Guard controversy (though it cost the jobs of producers and eventually Dan Rather). But it did so partly by, eventually, giving itself a long, hard look–among other things, it commissioned an independent investigation into what went wrong. The network hasn't said what it's going to do moving forward this time. But considering how this story played out, it looks like there's good reason again to give the job to someone who hasn't bought in.


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Rand Paul worked with Tea Party Express to put out a Tea Party State of the Union response last night. He did a great job and here are the 10 best quotes from his 13 minute speech.
10) "What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith."
9) "I have seen the inner sanctum of Congress and believe me there is no monopoly on knowledge there."
8) "I will continue to fight for legislation that forces Congress to read the bills! I will fight for a vote on my bill that calls for a waiting period for each page of legislation. I will continue to object when Congress sticks special interest riders on bills in the dead of night! And if Congress refuses to obey its own rules, if Congress refuses to pass a budget, if Congress refuses to read the bills, then I say: Sweep the place clean. Limit their terms and send them home!"
7) "I was elected to the Senate in 2010 in a wave of anti-Washington sentiment. I thought I knew how bad it was in Washington. But it is worse than I ever imagined. Congress is debating the wrong things. Every debate in Washington is about how much to increase spending — a little or a lot. About how much to increase taxes — a little or a lot."
6) "Liberals complain that the budget can't be balanced but if you cut just one penny from each dollar we currently spend, the budget would balance within six or seven years. The Penny Plan has been crafted into a bill that millions of conservatives across the country support."
5) "Competition has made America the richest nation in history. Competition can make our educational system the envy of the world. The status quo traps poor children in a crumbling system of hopelessness. When every kid in the inner city can, like the President's kids, go to the school of their choice, then will the dreams of our children come true!"
4) "It is often said that there is not enough bipartisanship up here. That is not true. In fact, there is plenty. Both parties have been guilty of spending too much, of protecting their sacred cows, of backroom deals in which everyone up here wins, but every taxpayer loses."
3) "It is time Democrats admit that not every dollar spent on domestic programs is sacred. And it is time Republicans realize that military spending is not immune to waste and fraud. Where would we cut spending, well we could start with ending all foreign aid to countries that are burning our flag and chanting death to America. The President could begin by stopping the F-16s and Abrams tanks being given to the radical Islamic government of Egypt."
2) "Bipartisanship is not what is missing in Washington. Common sense is."
1) "The President offers you free stuff to win your votes but his policies keep you poor."


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Latest"A Haircut Returns, From The 1930s" reads like such a typical New York Times trend piece headline. Oh, whatever could it be? Are finger-curls coming back? Shall we witness the return of bobs? Oh. No such luck. The Times alleges that people are walking into barber shops and asking for Hitler hairdos.
The exact style that the Times reports young men are calling "the Hitler Youth," at least according to one barber, is a variation on the short back 'n' sides, with the hair around the nape practically shorn, but the crown left long. Picture the '90s undercut, only more aggressive, and with longer tendrils on top.
[A] lot of them just ask for a Hitler Youth, said Sam Buffa, a founding partner of the barbershop. "I was trying to not use that" term, he added.
The old-school coif has become a go-to haircut not just for Web designers in heritage-brand clothing, but for fashion designers and D.J.'s in the style capitals of Europe.
"I think it goes along with a newly restored romance for tailoring, the cut and craftsmanship you see with this current heritage trend," said Scott Schuman, a photographer who has captured men with the hairstyle in London, Paris and New York for his blog, the Sartorialist.
Now, you may think this is actually not a Nazi-identified haircut at all, that it is too generic to be really Reich-y. Although the haircut was certainly popular with men in the 1930s, it was hardly exclusively worn by the Nazi military, as contemporary photographs of Resistance fighters and laborers who also sport it show. There are in fact many possible, significantly less-offensive, alternative names for this style: The David Lynch. The George Orwell. The Bernard Sumner. The Tilda. The, er, Sir Edmund Hillary. Hell, if we absolutely had to, we could call it the Teenaged Ratzinger. J/k, Catholics.
But the Hitler Youth? Even if only one single barber in the West Village of New York has ever heard a customer use the term, that is still just not an acceptable thing to call a haircut. Nazi is not a trend! Not for fall or for anytime! How does that even work? How does any self-respecting man who's read The Diary of Anne Frank, who's ever gone on a school field-trip to a World War II memorial, find himself settling into a barber chair and saying the words, "Gimme the Hitler Youth, Sam." NO SERIOUSLY. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN. Are these men all ironic Facebook friends with David Irving, too? And what does Sam say in response? Does he ever just start humming "Karma Police"? I need someone to re-enact the whole exchange for me because I do not understand how this actually takes place. In the 21st Century. Outside of some fringe David Duke survivalist commune in Montana. This is not okay. Please, men. Can't we stop the madness?
A Haircut Returns From The 1930s [NYTimes]


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Bench Press 101
By Jim Smith
No other exercise is more revered than the bench press.
If you didn't know that every Monday is National Bench Day, you would figure it out pretty quickly when you stepped into any gym across the country, at the beginning of each week. The majority of lifters are typically immersed in endless sets of every bench press variation you could imagine. While it is true that it is a great exercise, the bench press isn't the best choice for many lifters and, unfortunately, the majority don't know how to actually perform it correctly.
Taking a step back and perfecting your technique can make the difference between a shoulder injury and training hard for many years to come. If you take your time and learn how to do it right, and understand your individual limitations and weaknesses, your bench press weights and your fitness goals will sky rocket. Lastly, understanding that there are many ways to get the job done and the bench press is only one way, will help you break the mindset that you always have to incorporate it into your workouts.
Redefining the Bench Press
The great thing about incorporating the bench press into your workouts is that you will develop upper body strength, power, and massive amounts of muscle on your chest and triceps. But, with most good things, if you do them too much or the wrong way, the outcome that you are hoping for, will not be what you get.
You must first realize that the bench press requires the entire body to work together. Even though the focus is on the upper body, to get better at benching, you'll need to learn how to 'turn on' your hips and legs. This means, if you bench with your feet up, you need to stop this immediately. This will not only make the lift unstable, but you'll be leaving weights on the rack. Using your legs correctly when you bench will allow you to create more tension from your feet to your shoulders, which is essential for more stability and strength. This will allow you to push bigger weights and smash through any training plateaus.
To create more full body tension, plant your feet firmly on the ground and actively drive them downward during the lift. The tighter you get in the lower body, the more control you'll have over the weight. Once you have the lower body all set, you'll have to carry this tightness from your legs, across your core and into your upper body. Coordinating all of these muscle groups will teach you how to use your body as a single unit or kinetic chain.
Creating tension in the upper body starts with your grip on the bar. Two cues I throw out to my athletes are 'white knuckles' or try to 'melt the bar.' The harder you grip, the tighter your entire upper body gets; this is referred to as irradiation.
Next, instead of just relaxing and dropping the bar down to your chest, you'll want to actively pull the weight downward with your lats; much like a seated cable row. And, as you row the weight downward, you should be simultaneously driving your chest upward. This will keep you tight, limit the extension of your shoulder at the bottom of the lift, and allow you to set your shoulders back and down.
Once the bar touches your chest, drive it as hard as you can back up to lockout. Depending on how heavy the weight is, the bar may move slowly, but your intent should always be to move it as fast as you can.
One other critical technique to get better at bench pressing is perfecting your arm angle. This refers to the angle your upper arm or humerus makes in relation to your torso when you're lowering and pressing the barbell. Your arms should track at approximately 45 degrees outward from your torso. This allows you to distribute the weight better across your shoulders, triceps and chest. This might be the total opposite of the 'flared out' arm position you typically use. Unfortunately, when you allow your elbows to flare outward and move in line the top of your shoulders, you put a ton of stress on the shoulder joint itself and you will be predisposed to rotator cuff issues. Be warned, when you transition to this new technique, the amount of weight you can lift will probably go down. Don't be freaked out. This will quickly be remedied if you continuously use the new 'tucked elbow' position and work on developing more tricep strength. Another important note is that you should also begin performing your push-ups in this same manner. This will help groove the right horizontal pressing pattern and keep you in a safer position.
Let's break down the bench press further into a simple, step-by-step process.
How to Bench Press the Right Way
Step 1: Grab the bar at an equal distance on each side of the knurling. For most lifters, this is typically around shoulder width, or slightly greater than shoulder width apart. Squeeze very tightly to create tension in your hands, forearms, upper arms, shoulders, back and chest.
Step 2: Take a deep breath, driving your chest upwards and pulling your shoulder blades back and down into the bench.
Step 3: Plant your feet and drive them downward. Squeeze your glutes to tighten up your hips and lock them into place.
Step 4: Unrack the weight (with the help of a spotter) and move the bar directly over your chest WITHOUT losing the tension in your upper back or allowing your chest to collapse.
Step 5: Reset your air by taking another big breath. Hold your breath and tighten up.
Step 6: With your entire body as tight as possible, row the weight downward under control until it reaches your chest. Ensure that your wrists and elbows stay in alignment. This will give you the best leverage and keep the weight centered.
Step 7: Without allowing your chest to collapse or losing any tension, coordinate your leg drive with driving the bar powerfully back to lockout.
Step 8: Reset your breath and repeat for the next repetition.
Important considerations
* Whenever possible, always use a spotter to help you unrack and rerack the bar. This is often times when an injury can occur.
Let's discuss some of the most common questions.
Question 1: I can't get good leg drive, what do I do?
If your hips are too tight to allow you to drive your feet downward with great intent, work on improving the mobility at your hips. Mobility is a fancy way of saying you can move unrestricted at your hips for any lower body movement that you want to perform. Bench pressing requires hip hyperextension, which is typically a problem for most people who sit in the car or at work all day. Exercises like rear foot elevated hip flexor stretch variations, seated glute stretches, and foam rolling around your hips, will help you improve your position and lower body setup. In the interim, you can place 45 lb plates, smooth side up, on the ground under your feet, which will elevate your feet to accommodate your individual restrictions.
Question 2: I have shoulder or elbow pain when I bench?
The first thing I would tell you is to go see your doctor. You should not be in pain. If you are in pain when you bench, then you shouldn't bench. Period. Find out how significant the injury is and when you can and should return to the gym. Listen to your doctor!
If your doctor gives you the ok and you return to the gym, start by warming up consistently. Most lifters are too much in a hurry to get to the weights. If you take the first 10 minutes of every workout to warm-up before you hit the weights, you won't have to struggle through the first 3 sets of benching where your shoulders and elbows feel terrible. Simply by foam rolling your pecs and upper back, performing some shoulder and chest stretches and then some light push-up variations and face pulls, you will be setting yourself up for an amazing workout. Not only that, this simple warm-up can help you recovery better if you hit it between workouts.
Next you should incorporate more push-ups. Push-ups will help you to re-establish good technique and lay the foundation for heavier benching later on. You can really get creative with push-ups, so start trying out new variations, once you have your conventional technique dialed in. Push-ups with your feet elevated on the bench or band-resisted push-ups are two great options. But be sure to stay in a pain-free range of motion. If you have pain at the bottom of the push-up, place a foam roller under your chest and only lower down to a point where your chest makes contact with it.
Finally, to be really honest, the bench press is NOT the only exercise that will build a big chest. There are literally hundreds of pressing variations that can be substituted for barbell bench pressing, including pressing with specialty bars, dumbbell bench variations, floor pressing variations, cable machine exercises, bodyweight training, and many others. You should always keep your options open because the other truth is that standard benching is not really a great option for many people. Poor posture, limited shoulder mobility and a tight upper back are common issues for most people. These restrictions can cause poor technique and potentially lead to injury. Finding the right exercises that work for you and don't leave you in pain, is the recipe for long-term success.
Returning to the basics and starting from scratch with your bench press technique might be the solution to your ongoing shoulder and elbow problems. But, it also might not be. Make it a goal to find the right exercises that work for you and start incorporating more fundamental exercises like the push-up. This will be the key to you training smarter and getting better results. When you start making decisions in your workout based on your individual needs, you will immediately improve your ability to move bigger weights and build muscle safely.
I hope you enjoyed this starter article for the bench. Let's us know in the comments if you'd like to see more advanced benching techniques and also articles devoted to squatting and deadlifting.
Additional References
How to Bench Press – A complete guide
How to Perform Push-ups
How to Bench Press – Video Instruction
Jim is a proud Dad, strength coach, and fitness entrepreneur. Co-author of the best selling Athletic Development Training system, Jim has been recognized as one of the 'most innovative coaches' in the fitness industry. Jim is regularly featured in Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness.
Jim's website: www.dieselsc.com
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I'm not posting anymore, but all the recipes are here (for better or for worse) for reference.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
New Wendy's Commercial
Have you seen the new ad for Wendy's Baconator (830 calories, 51g fat, 190 mg cholesterol, 1760 mg sodium)? I can't find the video online, but essentially this guy turns down a bite of salad from his fellow female diner, proclaiming himself a "meatetarian." When she looks at him in disbelief, he explains that he only eats beef and bacon. He says something about it being a tough diet, and that one really has to commit. While I dislike Wendy's not-so-subtle implication that real men eat meat (leave the salad-nibbling to the chicks, right?), I can't believe they are celebrating the combination of beef and bacon. Have fun when the coronary hits, you jackass.


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Senate Passes Bill to Improve the September 11th Workers Protection Task Force
Legislation Extends Task Force For An Additional Five Years
(Albany, NY) The State Senate Democratic Majority has passed legislation sponsored by Senator Diane J. Savino (S7456) improving the September 11th Workers Protection Task Force, allowing the Task Force to continue to provide vital assistance to the thousands of heroes of September 11th.
Included in the legislation are measures to extend the task force for another five years and expand the composition of the Task Force.
The September 11th Workers Protection Task Force has played a central role in identifying additional issues that have arisen from the rescue, recovery and clean-up of the former World Trade Center site. While significant progress has been made, the work of the Task Force is not complete.
This legislation will allow the Task Force to continue to monitor the situation and provide support to the brave men and women of September 11th, ensuring these individuals receive the most efficient medical treatment and continued support.
Senator Diane J. Savino (D-Brooklyn) said, "The Task Force has done very valuable work over the past five years, addressing the immediate impact on the workers who responded to the WTC attack, but it is clear that the work is not done. Now, we are starting to see the long-term adverse effects of the exposure that many heroic 1st responders are now presented with. This is why the work of the Task Force needs to continue."
Senator Daniel Squadron (D-Brooklyn) said, "The September 11th Worker Protection Task Force has played a critical role in our city's recovery efforts – by adding the Mount Sinai Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine to the Task Force and extending it for five years, we can ensure that rescue and recovery workers who risked their lives for our community continue to receive the proper medical care and support they deserve. I thank Senator Savino for working so hard to push this bill through the Senate."
Senator Joe Addabbo (D-Queens) said, "The September 11th attacks have made it clear that the protections given to the previous century's workers do not adequately cover the catastrophic risks of the 21st Century. In 2010, paying for medical benefits and compensating workers insured in the course of the rescue and cleanup will cost billions. The Federal government has promised to pay for some of the cost, and now New York State is stepping up to the plate for them in this difficult financial time to give our 9/11 workers an extension of the Task Force that will help with the remainder of the financial burden regarding their medical treatment and continued support."
Information about this legislation can be found online at http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/api/1.0/html/bill/S7456


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"There were only a few exceptions to university collaboration in the Cold War heresy hunt." — Marjorie Heins
In 1952, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter called teachers "the priests of our democracy" and noted that it was their special task "to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens."
Frankfurter was an odd character, indeed, as Marjorie Heins shows in her fact-filled, balanced, and yet thought-provoking book about the battles for academic freedom that have been waged for decades in and out of classrooms, courtrooms, and in front of local and national investigating committees.
The battles go on; almost every week a book is banned by a school board somewhere in the U.S., though book bannings often don't make it onto network news.
In an early chapter in which she profiles the members of the Supreme Court in the period after World War II, Heins chronicles Frankfurter's epic journey from Austria, where he was born in 1894, to Ellis Island, the gateway to America, and from there to Harvard Law School and then to Washington, D.C. where he sat on the bench along with Hugo Black, once a Ku Klux Klan member, and William Douglas who came down on the side of the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech throughout his long judicial career.
It was an exceptional court by all accounts.
In 1952, when Frankfurter called teachers "priests," priests were held in much higher esteem than they are today by the American public, and so were teachers. For the past 60 years, the church and academia have both lost much of the prestige and status that they once enjoyed in part because of scandals that have often involved sex and money. Remember Jerry Sandusky? Now, both academia and the church routinely go about cleaning their respective houses; they have to if they want to remain in business.
Once upon a time, teachers — including many that Heins writes about — believed that they were on a holy mission to foster "open-mindedness and critical inquiry." Some of them were communists, others were pacifists, Quakers, Trotskyites, and plain old subversives.
They were often the best of teachers, so Heins suggests, and they were often the teachers most beloved by their students. But parents, politicians, and priests, too, viewed them with suspicion, accused them of heresy, disloyalty, and treason, along with minor crimes and misdemeanors.
Perhaps parents, priests in the Catholic Church, and virulently anti-communist politicians were jealous of the genuine bonds that existed between teachers and pupils and felt that they had to destroy them. Far more than ideology was at work here; pettiness, pride, and ego rose to the surface.
In the first nuclear age, The United States went berserk, though not everyone did, of course. Justice Douglas remained relatively sane and so did Justice Frankfurter. Their sanity is part of the picture that Heins paints. In the White House, Harry Truman lost his grip even as he tightened the screws; in 1945 he approved the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, and in 1947 he made loyalty oaths obligatory for federal employees. The U.S. seemed to want to do what the Soviet Union had done under Stalin — "purge" anyone and everyone suspected of failing to worship the leader.
Nixon, Truman, McCarthy, and dozens of local Nixon's, Truman's and McCarthy's, demanded that the priests of the democracy prove their undying, unswerving fealty, and name the names of those whom they suspected of disloyalty — or whom they just didn't like.As Marjorie Heins — a long time civil liberties lawyer — shows Americans obsessed about loyalty and disloyalty in the era of President Harry Truman, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, and a young California Congressman named Richard R. Nixon who made loyalty the name of the political game that catapulted him into the national spotlight.
Heins writes about the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and those of the Rapp-Coudert Committee that operated in New York State and brought about the dismissal of outstanding teachers at City College of New York such as Philip Foner and his twin brother, Jack, both brilliant historians and both Old Lefties, though they were young lefties in the 1940s. Heins has a fondness for Old Lefties like the Foners and for the tireless lawyers of the Old Left such as Victor Rabinowitz and Leonard Boudin.
The historical period reeks with flamboyant characters and colorful cases. It has fascinated writers and scholars for decades, and no doubt will go on fascinating writers and scholars such as Heins who see it as a time that was put aside explicitly to hunt for heretics and then to purge them as unhealthy, unsavory, and un-American.
In Priests of Our Democracy, a suspenseful drama unfolds in which diabolical men persecute mostly good men and women, and in which the nine justices on the Supreme Court make momentous rulings that affect the lives of hundreds if not thousands of school teachers. Unfortunately, the justices were often too slow to act; they too were caught up in the hysteria of the period, and were cowed by politicians who were determined to root out so-called subversives. Political climate is a powerful thing, and Heins does an excellent job of mapping it.
To read this book is to live, or relive, the era of the Cold War, when American society as a whole reverted to the kind of Medieval thinking and acting that was prevalent during the fifteenth-century Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, historians such as Cedric Belfrage have called the phenomenon just that — "an Inquisition." Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo labeled it "the time of the toad" and Columbia Professor Eric Bentley, a scholar of Berthold Brecht, borrowed from the language of the investigators themselves and counted it up as a disastrous "thirty years of treason."
Others, such as playwright Arthur Miller — once Marilyn Monroe's husband — likened it to a "witch-hunt" in his 1953 play The Cruciblethat lost him his career as a budding playwright for many years. Defending those accused of witchcraft and subversion was dangerous and guilt by association ruined many a career.
The virtue of Heins's book is that it focuses on largely unknown, unsung teachers and librarians such as Harry Adler, Oscar Shaftel, Vera Shlakman, George Starbuck — who complained about "them damn loyalty oaths" — and Leon Josephson, an ex-communist and the lawyer for Harlem's biracial nightclub, Café Society, where the likes of Billie Holiday and Lena Horne performed.
The Priests of Our Democracy mostly describes the anti-communist "crusade" (there's another metaphor for you) that took place in and around New York in the 1950's, and in and among the city's Jewish population. Jews, many of them the sons and daughters of immigrants, tended to be union members and to believe in union solidarity.
Priests of Our Democracy also offers sections about earlier purges in American history — during the Civil War and the Red Scare of the 1920s — when politicians demanded absolutely loyalty from citizens. Then, too, crusades and inquisitions took place in other parts of the country, including New Hampshire and the State of Washington.
Heins is passionate about her subject, but levelheaded, too. She doesn't romanticize communism, communists, the Old or the New Left of which she once was a part. Her research is compelling, the richness of the details absorbing, and the photos endearing. The index is excellent and the bibliography — which includes the pioneering work of Ellen Schrecker, author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities — is helpful. Heins credits the work of pioneering authors in her field.
In her conclusion, she describes what she calls "the continuing vacuum in American political discourse" which she attributes to the purges, investigating committees, betrayals, and punishments. American teachers, Heins shows, paid a heavy price if and when they refused to play the game of conformity. Booted out of academia, they scrambled to survive at all kinds of jobs.She points out the lingering affects of McCarthyism, the witch-hunts, and the purges — whatever you want to call them — on American culture as a whole. History, she understands, doesn't move in a straight line and rarely follows the path of progress. "There were only a few exceptions to university collaboration in the Cold War heresy hunt," she writes in a chapter she calls "The Laughing Stock of Europe."
They were also, she points out, a resilient and a resourceful group of people who were proud that they refused to knuckle under to the demagogic anti-communists who posed as idealists but who aimed to promote themselves and their careers. Some fired and discharged teachers were exonerated, and even honored — decades later.
I lived through the period of the 1950s and remember it well. My aunts worked for the pubic school system in New York and were investigated as Communists. My father, who was a lawyer, defended them and succeeded in preventing the board of education from firing them.
My college roommate, Eric Foner, now an illustrious historian, is the son of Jack Foner, and the nephew of Philip Foner. I spent my college days in the company of the Foners who continued to conduct research, write, and teach. It would be fair to say that they were my mentors and role models.
Many of my own teachers at Columbia had been radicals in the 1930s; by the 1950s they were no longer on the Left and no longer Marxists. In fact, they wanted to convert us to Freud and to Freudian concepts and to have us understanding that the U.S. was the best of all possible worlds.
I recommend this book to students, scholars, and citizens who care about academic freedom and about the fate of public discourse in America. I also recommend Priests of Our Democracy to those who worry that the war against terror has become in part a war against civil rights and civil liberties at home. Several states, including Ohio brought back loyalty oaths in the wake of 9/11.
When I first went to work for the State of California as a college teacher I had to sign a loyalty oath. I did so without protest. I wanted the job. The muckraking reporter, Jessica Mitford — whom I knew in Oakland —- didn't sign the oath when she was asked. She took on the oath itself and the administrators who enforced it as a matter of moral principle. She had far more resources than I and her husband, Bob Treuhaft, was an outstanding civil liberties lawyer. I might have asked my own father to take my case — and he would have been happy to do so — but he died long before I was hired.
The Priests of Our Democracy is also meant for those who work for colleges and corporations and at hospitals, radio stations, and elsewhere and who feel that in order to keep their jobs they have to censor themselves. Heins offers a telling quotation from Edwin Harold Eby, a lefty professor, who spoke for many Americans when he said, "If I was going to make a living in the U.S. I had to shut up — that was part of the job."
Self-censorship is, as Marjorie Heins knows, perhaps the most effective and noxious kind of censorship on the face of the earth, and, unfortunately, it's alive and well today from New York to Moscow and from Cairo and Los Angeles to Shanghai and Caracas.


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No major companies are quite ready to bring a proper Android tablet to market, but they're edging closer. When they do, they could do worse than turn out something like this 7-inch, Tegra 2 design from Compal.
Under the hood is Nvidia's newest Tegra, which guarantees snappy interface, video and graphics performance in theory. In practice, at least on this early device which can't leverage the new graphics acceleration in Android 2.1, menu transitions are still a little slow, browser scrolling isn't instant, and the responsiveness of the touch keyboard poor enough to make typing a genuine pain in the ass. But wait wait wait—that's a software optimization issue, which can almost definitely be fixed. What about the concept?
The Archos 5 Android tablet, had its issues, from lack of 3G support to inability to play Flash content, both of which have been remedied here—this Compal has a SIM tray as well as Flash 10.1 support. A shipped product would be faster than the Archos, and the extra two inches of screen are just enough to make this feel like a tablet, not an oversized smartphone. And to be honest, I could get into this.
It's a sofa tablet, a toilet tablet, a Skype tablet, whatever—there's a market for this, at the right price. The only serious issue now is that typing on the onscreen keyboard is almost impossible on a 7-inch screen, unless your thumbs are freakishly long. I have no idea how Google—or Apple, for that matter—could solve this problem. But someone might! And that would be great.
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The Heritage Foundation
Last week, on the vote to begin debate on the New START treaty, the White House got the nine Republican votes they will need to ratify it: Senators Bob Bennett (UT), Scott Brown (MA), Susan Collins (ME), Lindsey Graham (SC), Dick Lugar (IN), John McCain (AZ), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Olympia Snowe (ME), and George Voinovich (OH). So now that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) has filed for cloture, is Tuesday's vote a foregone conclusion? No.
This Sunday, Senator Graham (R-SC) told CBS's "Face the Nation" that he will vote against the treaty. Graham explained his mostly procedural objections to New START: "If you want to have a chance of passing START, you better start over and do it in the next Congress, because this lame duck has been poisoned."
And Graham is not the only member of the New START Nine rethinking their support. The treaty's preamble contains language that links our development of missile defense to Russian nuclear weapons. The White House had claimed that the language was not legally binding, so Senator McCain offered an amendment to solve the problem by just removing the language entirely. That amendment failed, and now McCain tells National Review he has not made a decision on the treaty.
The White House is still confident that, despite losing Graham and possibly McCain, they can still muster the nine Republican votes needed for ratification.
Yesterday, President Barack Obama issued a letter pledging to fully develop missile defense in Europe. In the letter, the President claims that New START "places no limitations on the development or deployment of our missile defense programs" and promises that he "will take every action available to me to support the deployment of all four phases" of a missile defense system in Europe. Senator Bob Corker (R–TN) took to the floor welcoming the President's letter: "A number of people on our side of the aisle have asked for it."
These are some real nice promises that President Obama is making in this letter. But what are they worth? Did Senate conservatives believe President Obama when he said he would close Guantanamo Bay? Because it's still open. Did these Senate conservatives believe President Obama when he said the individual mandate was not a tax? Because his lawyers have been claiming the exact opposite in court. Did these Senate conservatives believe the White House when they said the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent? Because it is currently at 9.8 percent.
Senators should keep in mind this Administration's hostility toward missile defense to begin with. Within months of assuming office, the Obama Administration announced a $1.4 billion cut to missile defense. The successful Airborne Laser boost-phase program was cut, the Multiple Kill Vehicle and Kinetic Energy Interceptor was terminated, and the expansion of ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California were canceled.
Adding insult to injury, President Obama then installed long-time anti-missile defense crusader Phillip Coyle as Associate Director for National Security in the White House Office of Science and Technology … by recess appointment. That's right—this President not only appointed the "high priest" of missile defense denialism as his top adviser on missile defense, but he did so in a way to purposefully avoid Senate consultation on the matter. This is the President some Senate conservatives want to trust? On missile defense? Really?
New START is a bad deal for national security at any time. The Administration still refuses to release the treaty's negotiation records. The Congress elected last month has a far more legitimate claim to approve this treaty than the one sworn into office two years ago, despite Senator John Kerry (D-MA) saying new members don't count. The tax rates have been frozen. The spending has been frozen.
This Senate should just leave New START to the next Congress and go home.
Read More – http://links.heritage.org/hostedemail/email.htm?h=66018060b112f838e88ddeaa026864b6&CID=7646118836&ch=6AE16AC2E7A1DB11DE18A9FB1D2BF6C7
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By: Sal Palma
When combat assault rifles are a topic of discussion, the Avtomat Kalashnikova emerges supreme and the most successful combat rifle in the history of modern warfare. No other shoulder fired weapon stirs emotions like the AK47.
Although nothing more than wood and steel, the AK47 retains a character, a certain romanticism, only found in the literary works of Russian poets like Alexander Pushkin; often described as evil and vicious by ardent, well intentioned, individuals lacking the capacity to reason that it is not the tool that makes the craftsman. Yet, it is fait accompli, the gates of heaven have welcomed countless innocents from its encounter. As true as the later is, the AK47 has earned global admiration for its robustness and simplicity of design, and a young Russian Sargent by the name of Mikhail Kalashnikov was author of its story.
Sixty-five years after its design, the AK47 remains the weapon of choice for many, if not all, of the developing nations around the world. Kalashnikov's design also influenced homegrown small arms like the Israeli Galil. Like the Pax Romana, which gave Christianity a fertile period that assured its growth, the AK47's accelerated distribution was the product of Soviet Russia and the Cold War. It's estimated that over 50 million AK47s and derivatives have been produced since 1949, when it was first adopted by the Soviet Army.
Design and development of the AK47 was heavily influenced by the Russia experience during WWII. Faced by Germany's mechanized assaults it became more important to deliver mass short-range area fire than continue the use of full power ammunition designed to engage point targets at 600 – 800 meters. Russia's response was to develop the 7.62x 39 round and Simonov's SKS rifle. Although the SKS was a poor response to Germany's MP44 (StG44) it moved the Russian army closer to an assault rifle concept.
In 1947, Mikhail Kalashnikov, developed the AK47 – a selective fire 7.62 x 39 assault rifle. There's been considerable discussion on just how much influence the German StG44 had on the development of the AK47, with some suggesting the AK47 mimics the StG44, an allegation that Mikhail Kalashnikov vehemently denies. Yet, interesting similarities surface with a side-by-side comparison of the two. For example, the short sight radius and rear sight block, the bolt carrier and gas piston assembly and possibly the combined use of stamped and milled parts.
The trigger, bolt assembly and unlocking raceways bear similarity to the M1 Garand, and the safety mechanism was clearly influenced by a John Browning's design found on the Remington Model 8.
Before it was modernized and morphed into the AKM, the AK47 was produced in three different types (Type I, Type II and Type III) each type incorporated a number of design changes that I'll mention briefly.
The Type I to Type II transition involved a change from a stamped receiver to a milled receiver and the addition of a receiver block for mounting the stock to the rifle.
Type I
Type II
The Type II to Type III transition saw the elimination of the receiver block for mounting the stock, the magazines were reinforced with the addition of ribs, the selector went from one finger tab in the Type II to two in the Type III. The gas piston in Type I and Type II designs was thicker and fluted. In the Type III design, the gas piston was completely smooth and thinner. There were other cosmetic changes that are inconsequential
Type III
After its introduction in 1959, the AKM or Modernized AK47 was the "de facto" standard and further improvements to its design were not made. Telling the difference between the AK47 and its modernized version, the AKM, is straight forward. The AK47 will have a milled receiver, lacks a muzzle brake, has a smooth receiver cover and the gas vents are aligned horizontally along the longitudinal axis of the gas cylinder.
The AKM will have a stamped receiver, ridged receiver cover (usually three ridges), a slant muzzle brake and the gas vents are aligned in a radial pattern along the interface of the gas cylinder with the gas block. Additional designations of N and P refer to the presence of luminescent element in the sights (P) or the presence of a rail along the side of the receiver, for day and night optics (N). AK's with folding stocks were designated with the letter (S)- regardless of orientation.
Soviet AKM
It would be 1974 before a major change in direction occurred, and that was the production of the AK74. Although the design of the AK74 was identical to the AK47, the AK74 was chambered for the 5.45 x 39 round rather than 7.62 x 39, and featured a redesigned muzzle brake. The AK74 replaced the AK47 as the standard issue carbine of the Soviet Army.
- AK47's may not be imported into the United States because it does not meet the "sporting use" definition as specified in law. As a result, all AK47's imported into the United States are configured in sporting configurations, meaning the offensive parts are replaced with acceptable parts prior to entering the country. Once the rifle arrives, the acceptable parts are removed and replaced with U.S. made parts to make the rifle 922r compliant. The process destroys the authenticity of the carbine so it is impossible to acquire a genuine AK47, AKM, AK74 and a slew of other models and firearms. It's a law that stands as a monument to our stupidity and I hope that the "sporting use" language and/ or the import band are repealed.
With over 50 million AK47's used and/or produced in 55 countries around the world it is unlikely that Kalashnikov's brain child will fade away into oblivion, but times change and the need for a more advance weapon systems demands a facelift.
So, just what is wrong with the AK47? Depending on who you ask, AK47s are either loved or dismissed as cheap pieces of junk. In the United States, they've taken on a cult status very much like driving a SAAB. Interesting comments like: "it's a stamped receiver that does not hold up" fascinate me since Heckler and Koch have been integrating stamped parts with milled parts for years, and across a large family of carbines that everyone likes. I suppose if you're influenced by appearances, the Kalashnikov rifles are the ugly duckling of the genre; however, it's only when you look beyond its physical appearance that you can gain an appreciation for the design. Don't get me wrong, I recognize there are limitations, but given it is now 65 years old even its harshest critic must admit that it was quite an accomplishment.
Notwithstanding its outward appearance, it is highly probable that were you to dig one out of the ground and load it, it would still fire. That level of reliability is an excellent reason to carry one. It's often been said that as long as there is a round in the magazine the AK will go "BANG"; the reason is the simplicity of its design. With a total of 8 moving parts, the AK47 or AKM family of carbines have the least moving parts of any assault rifle fielded, which when combined with looser machining tolerances makes the AK47 impervious to debris or heat related stoppages even without lubrication. The AK47 was designed to quickly outfit and train an army of conscripts. Other than the geopolitical climate of the Cold War reliability and simplicity are the overwhelming reasons why the AK47 became the weapon of choice in many developing nations.
Operations like field stripping and maintenance can be taught easily and in a matter of minutes to combatants who are illiterate and poorly trained.
If you examine the selector of an AK47 you'll note that the first position coming off "SAFE" is FULL AUTO. This is an indicator supporting its design objective, which was to deliver mass fire on an area target. Secondly, the sight radius on the AK47 rifle is quite short when compared to the M16, M4, HK G3, M14 and M1 Garand. The rifle was not intended to provide accurate point target fire at longer ranges. Soldiers would most likely use the front sight to make the shot. Finally, the 7.62 x 39 round, originally developed for the Simonov SKS rifle produces a strong recoil impulse when fired in the AK47. When all of these factors are placed in play, it's reasonable to expect that the AK47 is not a tack driver. Making the "pray and spray" perception ill-informed. In reality, when fired in semi-automatic mode, using proper trigger reset and advanced optics like the M68 weapon sight the AK47 is capable of 2 MOA throughout its effective range. Making the AK47 more accurate would involve improving the sights and tightening operating tolerances, and changing tolerances would adversely impact the weapon's reliability.
Magazine length has always been an issue with its critics. The AK47 magazine extends beyond the weapons grip so it hinders firing from the prone position.
So far, we are left with some interesting observations about the AK47. First, they can be built quickly and inexpensively. Second, they are easy to operate and maintain; reducing training times and cost of operation. Finally, there is a high percentage of parts commonality, few moving parts and high degree of reliability. It sounds like a strong business case to me!
Before moving on to current modernization efforts underway, I want to share one observation. The relationship between machining tolerances, accuracy and reliability is not a linear function. A one unit tightening of tolerances does not yield a one unit increase in accuracy, or on the down side a one unit decrease in reliability. Given current assault or combat loads, a soldier engaged in MOUT operations is physically incapable of holding 1 minute of angle accuracy so it is far more important, in my view, to provide him or her with a weapon capable of delivering large volumes of fire with utter reliability. This is the criteria that reigns supreme in my mind; however, there is no doubt that the AK47 and AKM are in need of a facelift.
Is the AK47 obsolete in concept or form factor? I happen to think it's the latter. With a modest face lift, it can brought into the 21st century yet keeping its timeless qualities.
A modernized AK47 would reflect an improved stock and grip for greater function and durability, it would include a quad rail system to support a variety of enhanced aiming devices that include red dot sights and laser aiming modules, IR illumination and IR laser aiming modules. It would include support for a vertical fore grip and a variety of other accessories that are Picatinny compatible devices. New receiver covers are entering the market that extend the rail system so the sighting optic can be brought closer to the shooter's eye. The Kalashnikov picture above is capable of supporting any of the existing technologies currently in use the the M4 or M16. Although we've added minimally to its weight we've retained its reliability and enhanced its accuracy.
The same improvement made by the owner of this AK47 ca
n be readily made to the AK74 due to its similarity of design. At a retail cost of just over $200, the owner of this AK47 has a rifle that is as capable, if not more so, than many of the carbines available in today's market. Other improvements are on the way and these include magazine designs and recoil mitigating devices ( in the meantime use a telescoping Bulgarian recoil spring).
Heading out to the range to see just how well this "pray and spray" AK 47 does!
Companies actively involved with AK47 enhancements:
- U.S. Palm
- Midwest Industries
- Parabellum Armament
- Brugger and Thomet
- ACE Ltd USA
- DPH Arms
- Samson Manufacturing
- Texas Weapon Systems
- AmeriGlo
- The MAKO Group
Video Link: Field Stripping AK47
Video Link:Parts Commonality Demo


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I have teamed up with BambooShoot.co.uk, one of England's Cambridge Satchel Company stockists, to give one of you lucky Raindrops of Sapphire readers the chance to WIN a FREE Cambridge Satchel 13″ satchel in Vintage Brown. I have the 11″ version in these photos, so the 13″ is slightly bigger and has room for a name badge on the front, which you can see here.
I have been in love with this brand for some time, I have a weak spot for the Cambridge made satchels! They are incredibly popular and they hold up really well in the rain as I found out the past two days. You can just wipe the raindrops off and the leather is unharmed.
All you have to do to enter this contest is become a fan of both the Raindrops of Sapphire and BambooShoot FaceBook pages (click names to like) and then comment on THIS PHOTO (<- click the words) letting us know why you think you should win the bag. It's as simple as that!
The contest is open worldwide for 2 weeks and will close on the 1st January 2012 at 11:59:59pm BST so anyone can enter! The winner will be chosen by BambooShoot from those of you who have liked both FaceBook pages and left an entry on the specified photo. Good luck to everyone who enters and thank you to BambooShoot for holding this contest with me!


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NSA collected thousands of US communications (Update 2)
The National Security Agency declassified three secret court opinions Wednesday showing how in one of its surveillance programs it scooped up as many as 56,000 emails and other communications by Americans not connected to terrorism annually over three years, revealed the error to the court—which ruled its actions unconstitutional—and then fixed the problem.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper authorized the release, part of which Obama administration officials acknowledged Wednesday was prodded by a 2011 lawsuit filed by an Internet civil liberties activist group.
The court opinions show that when the NSA reported its inadvertent gathering of American-based Internet traffic to the court in September 2011, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered the agency to find ways to limit what it collects and how long it keeps it.
In an 85-page declassified FISA court ruling from October 2011, U.S. District Judge James D. Bates rebuked government lawyers for repeatedly misrepresenting the operations of the NSA's surveillance programs.
"This court is troubled that the government's revelations regarding NSA's acquisition of Internet transactions mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program," Bates wrote in a footnoted passage that had portions heavily blacked out in the government's disclosure.
The NSA had moved to revise its Internet surveillance in an effort to separate out domestic data from its foreign targeted metadata—which includes email addresses and subject lines. But in his October 2011 ruling, Bates ruled that the government's "upstream" collection of data—taken from internal U.S. data sources—was unconstitutional.
Three senior U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday that national security officials realized the extent of the NSA's inadvertent collection of Americans' data from fiber optic cables in September 2011. One of the officials said the problem became apparent during internal discussions between NSA and Justice Department officials about the program's technical operation.
"They were having a discussion and a light bulb went on," the official said.
The problem, according to the officials, was that the top secret Internet-sweeping operation, which was targeting metadata contained in the emails of foreign users, was also amassing thousands of emails that were bundled up with the targeted materials. Because many web mail services use such bundled transmissions, the official said, it was impossible to collect the targeted materials without also sweeping up data from innocent domestic U.S. users.
The officials did not explain why they did not prepare for that possibility when the surveillance program was created and why they discovered it only after the program was well under way.
Officials said that when they realized they had an American communication, the communication was destroyed. But it was not clear how they determined to whom an email belonged and whether any NSA analyst had actually read the content of the email. The officials said the bulk of the information was never accessed or analyzed.
As soon as the extent of the problem became clear, the officials said, the Obama administration provided classified briefings to both Senate and House intelligence committees within days. At the same time, officials also informed the FISA court, which later issued the three 2011 rulings released Wednesday—with redactions—as part of the government's latest disclosure of documents.
The officials briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe the program publicly.
The documents were declassified to help the Obama administration explain some of the most recent disclosures made by The Washington Post after it published classified documents provided by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden.
One of the intelligence officials briefing reporters said the newly declassified documents should help explain "the reasons why people shouldn't go into a panic over articles they read in the press."
But the FISA court's classified rulings have also been at issue in a two-year-old lawsuit filed against the government by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties activist organization. In a decision in June, the FISA court ruled that its authority did not prevent the release of the earlier 2011 opinion.
A senior administration official acknowledged Wednesday that some of the documents released were in response to the lawsuit, while others were released voluntarily. The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the release with a reporter by name.
The release Wednesday of the FISA opinion, two other 2011 rulings and a secret "white paper" on the NSA's surveillance came less than two weeks after a federal judge in Washington gave government lawyers a time extension in order to decide which materials to declassify. The EFF had been pressing for a summary judgment that would have compelled the government to release the secret FISA rulings, and the government's most recent extension expired Wednesday, the day it released the once-secret FISA court rulings.
"This was all released in response to the court's orders," said Mark Rumold, an EFF attorney involved in the litigation.
The documents were posted later in the day on a new website that went live Wednesday afternoon. The front page of the site said it was "created at the direction of the president of the United States (and) provides immediate, ongoing and direct access to factual information related to the lawful foreign surveillance activities carried out by the U.S. intelligence community."
The site is hosted by the private Internet site Tumblr, a trendy blogging service which is particularly popular among teenagers and young adults.
While the NSA is allowed to keep the metadata—the address or phone number and the duration, but not the content, of the communication—of Americans for up to five years, the court ruled that when it gathered up such large packets of information, they included actual emails between American citizens, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Bates wrote that the NSA had advised the court that "the volume and nature of the information it had been collecting is fundamentally different than what the court had been led to believe," and went on to say the court must consider "whether targeting and minimization procedures comport with the Fourth Amendment."
For instance, two of the senior intelligence officials said, when an American logged into an email server and looked at the emails in his or her inbox, that screen shot of the emails could be collected, together with Internet transactions by a terrorist suspect being targeted by the NSA—because that suspect's communications were being sent on the same fiber optic cable by the same Internet provider, in a bundled packet of data.
These interceptions of innocent Americans' communications were happening when the NSA accessed Internet information "upstream," meaning off of fiber optic cables or other channels where Internet traffic traverses the U.S. telecommunications system.
The NSA disclosed that it gathers some 250 million internet communications each year, with some 9 percent from these "upstream" channels, amounting to between 20 million to 25 million emails a year. The agency used statistical analysis to estimate that of those, possibly as many as 56,000 Internet communications collected were sent by Americans or persons in the U.S. with no connection to terrorism.
Under court order, the NSA resolved the problem by creating new ways to detect when emails by people within the U.S. were being intercepted, and separated those batches of communications. It also developed new ways to limit how that data could be accessed or used. The agency also agreed to only keep these bundled communications for possible later analysis for a two-year period, instead of the usual five-year retention period.
The agency also, under court order, destroyed all the bundled data gathered between 2008, when the FISA Court first authorized the collection under section 702 of the USA Patriot Act, and 2011 when the new procedures were put in place.
The court signed off on the new procedures.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House still contends there is no domestic surveillance program. He said the program is specifically to gather foreign intelligence.
"The reason that we're talking about it right now is because there are very strict compliance standards in place at the NSA that monitor for compliance issues, that tabulate them, that document them and that put in place measures to correct them when they occur," Earnest said.
The disclosures were greeted with cautious optimism by Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, who has sponsored legislation to curb some of the NSA's surveillance and serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"I am glad the NSA is taking this step at owning its mistakes, but it is also a sign that we can and must do more to protect innocent Americans with no connection to terrorism from being monitored by our government—whether intentionally or not," Udall said Wednesday. "I will keep fighting to ensure that the NSA is not violating Americans' privacy rights."
More information: Documents available at: icontherecord.tumblr.com
© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


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US parents delaying preschool and kindergarten amid pandemic
MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Claire Reagan was feeling overwhelmed as her oldest child's first day of kindergarten approached and with a baby on the way. The 5-year-old boy has autism, and she worried he would struggle with juggling in-person and virtual learning, and that she wouldn't have enough time to give him the help he needs.
So she decided to wait a year before sending him to school.
"I was stressed about everything and then thought 'Why does he need to start kindergarten?' And it was like a weight was lifted," said Reagan, a 36-year-old high school teacher in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kansas.
Thousands of parents around the U.S. have made similar decisions, having their children delay or skip kindergarten because of the coronavirus pandemic. The opt outs, combined with huge declines in preschool enrollment, are raising worries about the long-term effects of so much lost early education.
"If there is a group for which you would be particularly concerned, it is these very young students who are not having these foundational experiences," said Nate Schwartz, a professor at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.
Kindergarten isn't required in most states, and in normal times parents sometimes "red-shirt" children who would be young for their kindergarten class to give them an extra year of developmental readiness. But enrollment numbers have plunged in many places this fall as parents weigh health concerns and the prospect of helping young children to navigate distance learning while also holding onto their jobs.
In Los Angeles' public schools, kindergarten enrollment is down about 6,000 students, or 14%. In Nashville, Tennessee, public kindergarten enrollment is down about 1,800 students, or 37%, from last year.
According to a University of Oregon survey conducted in early September with 1,000 parents from around the U.S., including 242 with a child who was supposed to start kindergarten this fall, 17% of respondents said they were delaying their children's schooling. Among those, the most frequent reason cited was safety concerns, followed by concerns about managing virtual schooling and other responsibilities, according to Philip Fisher, a psychology professor at the university who is leading an effort to measure the effect of the pandemic on young children and their families.
Fisher said the vast majority of parents reported that they were making sure their kids were attending all of their virtual lessons and completing their coursework without the assistance of hired help or other adults, making juggling their own work a challenge. He said that parents are overwhelmed, particularly those in low-income communities where schools are more likely to be offering only remote instruction.
"We think young kids are likely getting lost in the shuffle," he said.
Reagan, who is also keeping her 3-year-old daughter home from preschool, said she held off with kindergarten for many reasons, including her own pregnancy and instructions to quarantine for two weeks before she delivers in the fall. She said her job allows her to work from home and her family has insurance that will continue to pay for some of her son's therapy.
For many young students, the delayed start of primary school follows a disrupted preschool experience. Among preschool-age children, participation rates plummeted in the spring, as programs closed and children stopped attending, according to a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. The group is planning a follow-up report, but all indications are that enrollment hasn't fully rebounded, said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the institute.
He said public preschool programs such as Head Start have been "substantial equalizers" for low-income families.
"When that falls apart, parents are not going to be able to fill the gap," he said. "The people who are dependent on free public education as equalizers can't make up the difference when left on their own."
Some parents feel their children may be ready for in-person school but not for virtual school, said Anna Markowitz, an assistant professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"They are thinking I can't work and monitor my child's Zoom schooling. Parents are really in an impossible situation," she said.
Only 17 states and Washington, D.C., require children to attend kindergarten, Markowitz said. Parents elsewhere can bypass kindergarten and just send their children to first grade next fall. In a typical year, only about 4% of children who are eligible to begin kindergarten are held back by their families, said Chloe Gibbs, a Notre Dame economist.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released a report in July focused on younger children. Its advice was to prioritize the reopening of schools for children in kindergarten through fifth grade with well-funded safety measures in place. But since the report was released, high rates of community spread have made in-person learning more risky in many communities, turning young learners into virtual learning guinea pigs.
"When you look at the distance learning research, very little has been carried out on young students, even below middle school," said Brown University's Schwartz, who is a member of the committee that wrote the report and is also running a project that provides research to school leaders who are trying to make decisions during the pandemic. "Few people were even considering that it could be considered with kids this young."


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What began 60 years ago as a humble television store in this sleepy Southern capital ended Sunday as Circuit City closed its doors for good — its 567 remaining U.S. stores to be left broom clean and vacant.
For the last month and a half, a group of four liquidators have conducted going-out-of-business sales for what was the nation's second-largest consumer electronics retailer, selling its remaining $1.7 billion worth of inventory weeks sooner than expected.
In its wake Richmond-based Circuit City Stores Inc. will leave more than 18 million square feet of vacant space in a faltering real estate market. And more than 34,000 employees, some who worked through the liquidation announced in January, will be jobless. Shareholders will likely get nothing and creditors may receive far less than what they are owed.
Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November with hopes of emerging as a stronger company able to compete in the ever-expanding marketplace; shedding its $2.32 billion in debt and getting out of older real estate.
Unable to work out a sale or secure new financing, the company will instead spend its remaining days tallying money from the sale of its assets, breaking or assigning its leases and paying off its growing list of creditors.
Circuit City owes nearly $625 million to its 30 largest unsecured creditors — mostly vendors who supplied the DVDs, flat-screen TVs and headphones on Circuit City shelves. They must wait to be paid until secured creditors such as bank lenders are satisfied.
A small staff will remain at the corporate office during the wind-down process, but Circuit City's bookkeeping may ultimately be reduced to a laptop computer running small business accounting software.
Over the last few years, Circuit City, which at its height had more than 700 stores, faced heightened competition, pressure from vendors and waning consumer spending. Ultimately, the hobbled credit market and consumer worries proved insurmountable. The dismal environment also has claimed retailers including KB Toys and Mervyns.
Circuit City, which posted losses in seven of its final eight quarters, had its brand value diminished in the 1990s as it lost significant traffic to rivals like Best Buy Co., which built bigger stores in better locations and achieved greater economies of scale. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and others who have expanded their electronics offerings also wooed Circuit City customers.
Around the country, stores once full of televisions, stereos, computers and other consumer electronics had little merchandise left on the last day of business, with many locations selling store fixtures like shelves and other odds and ends.
Inside a store in Little Rock, Ark., a few tables sat in the middle of an empty showroom, with discarded wireless phones and other electronic wiring. A box nearby contained alarms, that once guarded the store's digital cameras and camcorders, being sold for 25 cents each.
Families with toolboxes disassembled the store's racks and stands. Terry Garner, 60, of Little Rock, struggled to shove a rack into the back of his van.
"That's all they had left," said Garner who had previously bought a keyboard and other items from the chain. Checking out the liquidation sale was a smart move for "yard-sale shoppers" like he and his wife.
"We're going in there for bargains," he said.
At a Circuit City store on Manhattan's Upper West Side, store employees spent time saying their last goodbyes. The store had already been fleeced of all its inventory, and a makeshift sign outside the store offered only fixtures. Shopping carts, store displays and even check-out stands were for sale, although few customers streamed into the two-story space.
Store employees huddled together, sitting on a check-out counter, laughing and reminiscing. A store manager declined to comment about the retailer's last day in business.
All but two small aisles and some scattered plastic bins overflowing with tangled cables had been cleared out of a store in San Antonio. The other aisles were blocked with yellow caution tape, while signs warned "All Sales Are Final."
The parking lot was busy, but many customers came out of the store empty-handed.
"Everything is picked over. They're going over wires and TV stands, the little stuff," said Roman Garcia, 30, carrying a bag crammed with videogames. He bought nine copies of an online multiplayer game called "Team Fortress." He picked up the copies for $1 apiece and planned to send them to other members of his online gaming group.
Alan L. Wurtzel, son of company founder Samuel S. Wurtzel and himself a former chief executive of Circuit City, has previously said the company didn't take the threat from Best Buy seriously enough and at some points was too focused on short-term profit rather than long-term value.
Still, Circuit City took arduous steps in an attempt to turn around its struggling business.
In 2008, it defused a proxy battle, opened its books to potential buyers like Blockbuster Inc., changed management, closed stores in some locations and tested smaller concept stores in others. It laid off about 3,400 store workers in 2007 and replaced them with lower-paid employees, a move analysts warned could hurt morale and drive away customers.
Circuit City also had hoped to make up for its diminished product margins with its service and installation business called Firedog, which opened in 2006 — four years after Best Buy purchased the similar Geek Squad service.
"I wish there was one kind of fatal blow that we could all pick out," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at market researching firm, The NPD Group Inc. "Every time there was a crossroad ... in hindsight they almost always did the wrong thing."
Baker pointed to many other missteps in management, among them: not declaring bankruptcy sooner, not getting into the music and movie business earlier, takeover bids in the mid-2000s, and exiting the appliance business in 2000.
"When you make that many mistakes, eventually you end up at the edge of the cliff," he said.
While the electronics retail giant as it has been known for years will be gone, the Circuit City name may still live on.
Telecommunications company Bell Canada is buying a chain of 750 The Source by Circuit City electronics stores across Canada operated by the company's InterTAN subsidiary. And Hilco Merchant Resources LLC, a Northbrook, Ill.-based retail consulting and liquidation firm, said it hopes to buy the brand name and Web site.
When asked for comment on the company's store being shuttered permanently, Circuit City offered only this from James A. Marcum, its vice chairman and acting president and chief executive: "I want to thank our associates for their hard work during this difficult time."